To Travel the Gates
by Sunhawk1
Summary: This is a new fic of mine... I know, I know; I need to write more chapters of the ones I already have... but... I just couldn't resist! This is a crossover between Ranma 1/2 and the Deathgate Cycle series by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman. Reviews, as


To Travel the Gates   
A Ranma 1/2 and Deathgate Cycle crossover   
by Shea McIntee   
  
Disclaimer: Ranma 1/2 belongs to Takahashi-san, and the Deathgate Cycle and characters/situations/ect therein belong to Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, a phenomenal pair of writers.   
  
Notes: I can safely guess that every who's reading this (well, almost everyone) is familiar with Ranma 1/2. However, if you haven't read the Deathgate Cycle, go to your local library or bookstore, look under 'W' for author (Weis), and look for the series! It's an incredible series of seven books, with magic, vengeance, mystery, cataclysm, struggle, and all that really good stuff. It's in the sci-fi/fantasy section (Titles include Dragon Wing, Elven Star, Sea of Fire, Serpent Mage, Hand of Chaos, Into the Labyrinth, and Seventh Gate, in order).   
  
Prologue   
  
He walked with a slightly hunched posture, weighed down with the cares and sorrows of years of life. Where there was once a confident stride, only a gentle easy pacing existed. His once dark blue eyes were now a light cerulean shade, almost silver in it's quality, and no longer sparkle with repressed confidence and vitality, with only a faint glimmer, well hooded, giving evidence of a strong spirit. His hair fell loose to an inch or two below his shoulders, and was no longer the dark black of his youth, but a sparkling silver that caught the eye.   
  
Otherwise, physically, he was not much changed from his long-ago childhood self. Perhaps he grew an inch or two, and perhaps his body was a little bit bulkier, but that was merely part of maturing. Aside from his eyes and gait, there was little sign of the years of his life. Most observers would place his age in his early thirties, and that mainly on account of the silver-white hair, which, framing his face, added years to an otherwise youthful body.   
  
Mentally, on the other hand...   
  
He had watched everyone he knew die in fire, as two groups of powerful humans, the Patryn and the Sartan, struggled with each other in a war like any other, over pointless power, and like all other wars, the innocent suffered. In this case, a whole world of innocents died when the Sartan, desperate at the growing power of their rivals, shattered the world into four worlds and a prison, each world connected to the others and sustained in their unbalance by the Death Gate. Every living being on earth died, save for the Sartan, hidden away in the Seventh Gate, and those whom they saved to live on the new worlds.   
  
Everyone, that is, except him. The skills and abilities that once made him the premier martial artist of his generation, and perhaps all of them, and the rune magic he had learned before and during the course of the conflict, was all that saved him as he watched hopelessly as the world was split with fire. Everyone around him died, leaving him the sole survivor of the old world.   
  
Now, many long centuries later, he was unchanged and almost weary. There were no challenges left; he was, he reflected in a rare moment of good humor, the best. He traveled the worlds of the elements, mostly Pryan, wandering without a purpose, occasionally assisting or hindering someone as his whim dictated. The other Patryn had long ago been sealed away by the Sartan in a giant prison, under the guise of some sort of magical correction facility designed to meld them into a more peaceful society, while the jailors themselves disappeared, becoming more and more isolated, as their carefully constructed system exibited flaws that inevitably doomed their efforts to succeed. Each world lacked in something, and the Sartans' carefully constructed melding of machinery and magic designed to correct each of these lacks, whether it was a scarcity of water, an overabundance of energy, the lack of heat to live, or an irregular frozen sea, broke down. The four worlds, after all, were originally designed to be a single (mostly) self-sufficient world, and in it's shattering had lost that self-sufficiency.   
  
It had been a long time since he had traveled to one of the other worlds now; although his grasp of rune magic didn't allow him to travel without traversing the Death Gate, which was barred to all passage, he could use his chi to resonate his location with a corresponding location in another one of the six Gates, or worlds, since each of the worlds was actually in the same place in space as the others, merely holding a difference "rotation". However, he rarely had reason to. Of them all, this world, Pryan, the world of Fire, with it's inverted world and four blazing suns in the middle and overgrown by vegetation, was perhaps best off. Arianus, the world of Air, with it's floating continents and warring nations, was a world constantly teetering on the brink of destruction. Water was a scarse commodity, and the undying hatred between humans and elves (and various infighting among both groups), ensured that that world would, without a miracle even he couldn't provide, inevitably dissolve into violent chaos. The world of water held a few scattered settlements of those the Sartan and Patryn called mensch, humans, elves, and dwarves, and a frozen colony of the would-be masters. Literally frozen, in fact, as the sea had cooled and locked their city in ice. Although life there was peaceful enough, he would never live there so long as the Sartan Council did. It wouldn't be safe for him.  
  
Besides, he hated them. Despised them. Those unspeakably arrogant fools had broken the world, and killed countless people in agony, because of their pathetic paranoia.  
  
If they had waited even only a few more years before attempting their plot, the conflict might have died away - Ranma had been working hand-in-hand with a respected member of the Sartan Council in an effort towards peace; Ranma influenced the Patryn leadership, among whom he was counted as a respected figure, while his partner did the same with the council. Growing up in Nerima as they both did, they had seen the result of the best of intentions... and never wanted to see them again.  
  
At any rate, the world of Water held little appeal for him. Oh, his one-time curse was no problem; when the world had been destroyed Jusenkyo had gone with it, and with Jusenkyo had gone all the curses, oddly enough. Still, he always remained wary of large bodies of water.  
  
Abarrach, the world of Stone, although moderately prosperous at first, was now doomed to a frozen death,;as the machinery designed to transmit energy from Pryan to the massive columns that heated the settlements broke down, the columns started to cool, and most of the settlements would die. The mensch there were already dead, and the inhabitants had picked up some nasty habits... like necromancy. The old saying about 'a life taken untimely for each life brought back untimely' came to mind... and that particular piece of advise was more than trite truism.  
  
As for the Labyrinth... when the Sartan originally created it, most had the (somewhat) idealistic idea of creating a prison that would challenge the Patryn until they 'reformed' and learned to rely on the community for support, instead of consisting of tightly-knit family units. Unfortunately, many of those designing the prison held feelings of hatred and distrust and fear, and those where transmitted into the Labyrinth, as it became an almost sentient being feeding off of the suffering of it's inhabitants.  
  
The worlds, in short, were dying, and there was little Ranma, once called Saotome, immortal, unchanging, and the last living inhabitant, as far as he knew, of a long-forgotten world, could do to stop it. In some ways, he considered it almost appropriate, a fitting tribute to the shattered world of his birth.   
  
  
Author's Notes, v 1.1: Well, I revised a couple of things. Now Ranma is/was a Patryn (notice his hair?), and I've figured out that I'll be starting out somewhere in 'Elven Star'. There might be a couple more revisions, and then, perhaps, I can go forward with this one.  
  
  
Author's Notes: Well, let me know how you liked this... feedback is ALWAYS welcome, even flames... (it's getting later in the year, and flames keep one toasty warm...) deus_ex_mach42@hotmail.com   
Oh, and buy/check out the books of the Death Gate Cycle! And, if you enjoyed those, try the Dragonlance series' Chronicles and Legends, by the same authors (who, from what I understand, were part of the beta-test for said AD&D campaign) and the Starshield books.   
For future possibilities/meetings in THIS fanfic, I've been considering a meeting between Alfred and Ranma, Haplo and Ranma (of course), and Ranma and Zifnab (heheheh...), among others. I'm not sure if this'll run parallel to (or roughshod over) the normal story line, or take place afterwards.   
Oh, and for other fics; expect a new chapter of Mark of the Phoenix out soon, which will be explaining some of the rather laboriously constructed background... and I'll be continuing "For If We Shadows Have Offended... DEAL WITH IT!", and at the least putting "Through the Eyes of a Dragon" on hold while I consider it's status. "An Immortal Love," is awaiting some insight/deep thought, so don't expect more of that for a bit... don't worry, though, I have every intention of continuing it. Other fics (Birds of a Feather, and so forth), may be continued, may not be. I'm a naughty slacker...   
Shea McIntee 


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